In our modern world, we have many growing issues, and many of them can be traced back to what is called deliberate, or planned obsolescence. Deliberate obsolescence is a manufacturing decision by a company to make consumer products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The main goal of this type of production is to ensure that consumers will have to buy the product multiple times, rather than only once. This naturally stimulates demand for an industry's products because consumers have to keep coming back again and again.
Deliberate obsolescence in all its forms – Technological, psychological, or planned – is a uniquely American invention.
“Not only did we invent disposable products, ranging from diapers to cameras to contact lenses, but we invented the very concept of disposability itself, as a necessary precursor to our rejection of tradition and our promotion of progress and change. As American manufacturers learned how to exploit obsolescence, American consumers increasingly accepted it in every aspect of their lives.”
I would like to address this growing problem in modern technology. Recently, technology is getting less reliable as time goes on. Certain things that, if made ten years ago, might still be around, manage to break in one year. For instance, every iPod I have owned has broken in between ten and fourteen months. Notice I said EVERY IPOD: this is exactly what Apple wants me to say. They know that I am still going to get a new one once it breaks, so they have no incentive to build them more durable. Companies like Apple know that they can use cheaper, less durable components, assuming that I am not going to want to own my iPod for more time than the components last. This also causes landfills to fill up with things like cell phones, cathode-ray-tube monitors and similar obsolete technology.
Usually, software pushes hardware to be more powerful, then hardware pushes software. This cycle is the heart of technological advance. Recently, software has been getting much better, while hardware is just being pushed to more and more fragile points to keep up with the software. People care more that they can fit 160GB worth of music in their pocket than they do about shelling out $250 every 12 months. In essence, an iPod is a small hard drive with some software and a user interface. I have owned a different small hard drive for upwards of 6 years, with almost daily use, and it still works just fine.
Some products aren't just built fragile, they are deliberately made to break around when their warranty expires. The XBox 360 is a prime example, where more than 50% of owners have had a hardware failure in the first year of ownership. Part of the reason for that is that the cooling system was errored when the console launched November, 2005. That's four years ago, and yes, I've been through three of them. There is even a commonly used trick to kill your xbox, just so you can send it in for replacement before the warranty ends.
For a point of reference, think of older technology that's still around. For instance, I have a computer from 1999 that still works as if it were new. Think of old VCRs, or CD players. They didn't die of old age. What will happen to modern technology in ten years? If companies would start building their hardware for long term use, this wouldn't happen. Another possible solution would be to boycott fragile products, but we all know that people are too lazy to live any way but with 40000 songs in their pocket, and don't get me started on that.
